Overview

The Altoona Area School District’s English as a Second Language (ESL) Program seeks to ensure that all students are provided with a quality education. The AASD utilizes the PDE BEC for ESL as the primary source for its program goals and objectives. The goals for the English as a Second Language Program are to:

• Teach Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing skills to each student in the English as a Second Language (ESL) Program.
• Facilitate English language acquisition through the communication skills used to read, write, speak and understand others and reinforce the general education curriculum.
• Assist all English Learners (ELs) in accessing content area instruction while learning English, so they can remain at grade level and make progress toward grade level competency in content areas.
• Incorporate students into content classes using multiple assessment criteria.
• Monitor for two years the progress of former ELs who have exited the ESL Program to determine if additional alternative language instruction is needed.
• Familiarize the EL with the varied cultures and customs of the United States while promoting their own ethnic pride.
• Help the EL student to learn and understand the social behaviors of school and community and to use the appropriate language and behavior to communicate and interact successfully.
• Communicate consistently with regular classroom teachers, school administrators and counselors, pertinent support staff, and parents to address the learning and emotional needs of EL students in a holistic manner.
• Meet yearly with school-based ESL Teams (ESL Teacher, Content Teachers, Guidance, Administrator and other relevant personnel) to determine if the ESL student is making progress.
• Evaluate PHLOTEs with the WIDA Screener to determine ESL enrollment, placement, and instruction.
• Assess ESL student yearly with the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs 2.0.

• English as a Second Language and English language learner - source: Colorin Colorado
• English language learner - source: The Glossary of Education Reform 
• ELL vs. ESL, LEP, Bilingual video - source:  Teachings in Education
• ELL, ESL, LEP, etc - source:  US. Department of Education glossary